Inaugural Year—Where History & Grit Collide
Welcome to the inaugural Harvest & Howitzer Backyard Ultra—where elite ultrarunners, genuine community, and the untamed Sierra foothills converge. Conceived and built by a team with over 300 years of combined ultrarunning experience—including Western States finishers, Tevis Cup veterans, and world record holders—this is the event the trail community has been waiting for.
The premise is simple: one 4.167-mile loop, every hour on the hour, on a private 100-acre Christmas tree and apple farm until only one runner remains. No traditional finish line—just grit, legendary hospitality, and history in the making. From April 30 to May 2, 2027, join us in historic Georgetown, California, for an experience designed to honor the selfless ethos of trail running, where your crew and family are treated as first-class participants too. This is a gathering of the tribe, a festival celebrating our sport and community. This is the backyard ultra you came for.
The Howitzer
To understand the name of this race, you have to understand the land it is run on—and a piece of California history that borders on madness.
In the brutal winter of 1843, Captain John C. Frémont launched a grueling, unauthorized mapping expedition across the American West. Against explicit orders from Washington, Frémont insisted on dragging a massive, 1,200-pound bronze mountain howitzer cannon through some of the most unforgiving terrain on the continent.
His men hauled that heavy artillery piece over rugged canyons, through freezing rivers, and deep into the trackless Sierra Nevada mountains. It was an exercise in pure, stubborn ego. The cannon was rarely fired; it was mostly just an exhausting, relentless burden. Yet, Frémont fiercely refused to leave it behind, deeply attached to the sheer firepower and security it symbolized.
Ultimately, trapped deep in the snow-choked Sierras—exhausted, freezing, and facing starvation—Frémont had to make a brutal, tactical calculation. To save his men and survive the expedition, he had to let go of his obsession. He abandoned the cannon in the mountains. He had to lay the howitzer down.
Hauling the Cannon: The Backyard Chess Match
In a backyard ultra, every runner enters the starting corral hauling their own metaphorical howitzer. The cannon represents your heavy artillery—your raw power, your stubborn pride, and your refusal to yield. For the first 4, 12, 24, 30, or 40 hours, you keep firing. You rely on that sheer, unyielding force to drag yourself through the dark hours and back to the starting line, loop after loop. It takes incredible grit to keep that weapon primed when your body is begging you to stop.
But a backyard ultra isn’t won by mindless firing. It is a psychological chess match that demands profound self-awareness.
You must know exactly how to manage your energy, when to conserve your strength, and how to survive the psychological lows. True mastery of this format means recognizing the fine line between pushing the limits of human endurance and knowing when the battle is fully fought.
There is no shame in reaching the end of your line. When the tank is bone dry, ultimate respect belongs to the runner who pushed the champion to their absolute brink—and then had the profound clarity, honor, and courage to finally lay the howitzer down.
Event's current local time: 2:50 AM PT
